Election opens door for diverse community

The election earlier this month saw a lot of firsts nationally — with women, members of the LGBTQ community and people of color winning seats in all sorts of government bodies.

While there wasn’t a lot of change locally, Oneida County still followed that trend, seeing the first openly gay legislator elected to the Oneida County Board of Legislators and the first Asian and immigrant elected to the Rome Common Council.

Democrat Michael Brown won a seat on the Legislature in District 12 and Cam Tien won the Ward 1 seat on the Common Council.

Brown said he didn’t face as much criticism about his sexual preference in this election compared with what he saw during the 2014 mayoral race in Rome. That shows growth, he believes.

“As far as I’m concerned, it is a non-issue,” he said. “What’s neat about it, I think, is when we’re dealing with health and human services issues, when we’re dealing with talking about LGBTQ issues, I can actually speak from a different place from the rest of the Legislature. I can speak from an inclusive place.”

Tien, who will be making his debut in politics, said he ran because he wanted to have a say in what was happening in the city he calls home. Though he didn’t think of it as mounting milestones by being the first Asian man to be on the council, he thought of it more as being an involved person in his community.

“It didn’t even really cross my mind,” Tien said. “I’ve lived in Rome since 2001, so I saw myself as just more of a resident of the city. It didn’t cross my mind that I would be the first Asian to be on the Common Council. I didn’t even think about it until someone else brought it up.”

Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente Jr. said he is happy to see the governing bodies reflect the community.

He said he doesn’t see it all as being about the last election, but understands why it would have an affect on the way people voted this year.

“We should look like the community we represent,” Picente said. “I talk about getting the next generation involved. … You’d like to see the Board of Legislators or the Common Council or any elected bodies be a more reflective example of the community.”

Nationally, the trend leaned toward wins for people such as Danica Roem in Prince William County, Virginia, who became the first openly transgender candidate to win a state house seat in the country, according to an article from NPR.

Also in Virginia, Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala became the first Latina women elected to the chamber, NPR said.

Kathy Tran, a refugee from Vietnam became the first Asian woman to be elected to the House of Delegates in Virginia.

In Minneapolis, Andrea Jenkins became the first openly transgender person of color to be elected to office in the country, winning more than 70 percent of the vote for the city council spot.

Ravi Bhalla was elected mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, making him the city's first Sikh American chief executive.

Brown said he’s excited to hear that there is more diversity representing an ever-changing country. He contributes it a lot to women who want their voices heard better and the millennials who want to see change.

“I think that you’ve got a lot of disenfranchised people that finally realized that, ‘Oh my God, my vote does make a difference,’ and I think a lot of those people came to the polls,” he said. “I think that’s a really powerful thing. … I think that it’s just simply not an issue, so why shouldn’t elected bodies start to reflect the general population.”

Contact reporter Samantha Madison at 315-792-5015 or follow her on Twitter (@OD_Madison).

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